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PENITENTIARY ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE CHARGE OF PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS: EXPERIENCE OF NIZHNY NOVGOROD REGION

Penitentiary establishments in the charge of public organisations: experience of Nizhny Novgorod region

The control over and the assistance to penitentiary establishments on the side of the public depends upon the degree of public interest to problems of the incarcerated. Today public organisations in Russia, and in particular in Nizhny Novgorod region, have accumulated sufficient experience, although the forms of public control are still imperfect.

1. History of public initiatives

Everything began with separate actions of human rights protection organisations, charity organisations and religious confessions in early 90s. In 1993 the first Russian organisations appeared that rendered assistance to the incarcerated. The activities of various groups and funds soon branched into two main directions: charity and human rights protection.

Religious confessions have a legal justification to work in penitentiary establishments. Since 1994 they have got the opportunity to attend colonies. In Nizhny Novgorod region Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Baptists and other missionaries started to work in prisons and colonies. Most of all they attended the most "open" colony for women. Neighbouring colonies יץ-5 and יץ-9 were visited rather often too; parishes of Evangelist confessions appeared in these colonies. The religious organisations passed to the incarcerated not only clerical literature, but also humanitarian aid. The Christian mission "Dawn" attended יץ-9 regularly.

Since 1995 the interest of exotic confessions to penitentiary establishments decreased drastically, but instead the Russian Orthodox church increased its activity. Orthodox priests began to appear in the colonies. The activity of the Orthodox church and the positive attitude of the administration resulted in the creation of rooms for prayers in the majority of colonies; in some of them churches were built. By the Metropolitan's decision the colonies are ascribed to parishes. Nonetheless, in practice, the attendance of colonies mostly depends on the initiative and insistence of clerics.

The experience of the educational work with the convicts of Ardatov colony by Father Mikhail and clerk Eugen Paniushkin from the Znamenskiy cathedral is especially successful and well-known. They have permanent contacts with the incarcerated for several years. Along with the spiritual mission, the Znamenskiy cathedral began to collect charity for the colony. Minor convicts were provided with medication, vitamins, clothes and food products from the charity sources. Only in 1997 the colony got from the Znamenskiy cathedral the aid worth of 186,5 million roubles, in 1997 activists from the town of Ardatov founded charity and human rights protection organisation "Sretenye".

Public organisations began to assist the incarcerated later than religious confessions. They rendered a different sort of aid passing mainly medication and books. The Nizhny Novgorod Society for Human Rights (NNSHR) presented more than six thousand books to colony libraries since 1994. In 1995 on the NNSHR initiative, supported by the region administration, the Guardian Council was founded. With the active assistance of businessmen of the region the Council started to render assistance to colonies by food products, medicine and building materials, and since 1997 the Council started to promote the orders for the goods produced in penitentiary establishments. In 1998 the Council created the centre which is in charge of ordering and sale of goods produced in colonies. The centre of resocialisation will he organised for the released convicts in the town of Dzerzhinsk. Public organisations also collect charity for the AIDS and TB infected.

The juridical aid to the incarnated is an important contribution of public organisations. The incarcerated, being completely dependent on the administration, cannot protect their rights. They do not know exactly, which rights they have, and the only source of similar information is from human rights protection organisations. In case of an illegal punishment or a refuse to fulfill his legal requests, the incarcerated turns for consultation and support to a human rights protection organisation. NNSHR receives about 50 such applications monthly.

Since 1998 NNSHR, jointly with the charity fund "Brotherhood", carries out the defence of the incarcerated in court. The main target of this programme is to transfer conflicts between an incarcerated and the administration into the legal channel, to make these clashes legal, without leaving the framework of law. In future this will permit a better protection although today the convicts, who are ready to defend their interests in court, are persecuted by the administration more than, say, those who went on a hunger strike.

The NNSHR also created "League of relatives of the incarcerated". Thanks to this organisation relatives of the incarcerated can realise their legal rights, without apprehending that their incarcerated kinsman will be persecuted. By today the League has carried out monitoring of colonies of the region and collected, information on a lot of illegal prohibitions and restrictions for the incarcerated and their relatives.

Estimating the experience, one can mark out the following fruitful directions:

2. Conditions of development of the public control

Before 1992 the public assistance and the spiritual support in penitentiary establishments were practically impossible. Public initiatives had to be compatible with the interests of the authorities. Only when a new article "Guaranteeing the freedom of consciousness of the incarcerated" was added on 12 July 1992 to the Federal Law, the attendance of colonies by clerics became legal; after 1994 distributing material aid for the incarcerated also became permissible.

While charity initiatives developed, the public control in the legal vacuum was practically non-existent. The public control in the Correcting Labour Code was defined as a necessary state-significant form of the participation of the public in reforming criminals. This participation was realised mainly through observing commissions. These commissions organised by the administration just imitated work. However, in Nizhny Novgorod region we managed to include human rights protection activists into such commissions, after which the commissions became useful for real assistance to the incarcerated.

The adoption of the new Penal-Executive Code did not widen the legal basis of the public control and the more liberal law "On public control", mentioned in the Code has not been adopted yet. Meanwhile the situation with human rights protection organisations, which attempt to protect the incarcerated, has not changed. Until now their activity is not accepted by the conservative penal-executive system. Human rights protection activists are admitted to colonies only as an exception. This certainly does not enable human rights protection and charity organisations to pass to more efficient forms of assisting the incarcerated.

Lack of rights of public organisations today is inadequate to their significance and potential. That is why the attempts are made more and more frequently to switch the interrelations between public organisations and the administration to the contract type. Some organisations have already concluded agreements with penitentiary establishments as to charity assistance and management of the colony production.

However, one should not expect that the administration will be willing to conclude such agreements. Usually the agreements are concluded with the support from above.

The positive experience of this sort is accumulated in Poland. As long ago as in 1993 the Main Directorate of the penitentiary system of this country and the public organisation "Patronage" concluded an agreement, which introduced partnership relations between the both sides. The Directorate took the obligations to inform "Patronage" on the situation within the system and to permit their access to colonies. In its turn "Patronage" promised to agree with the Directorate the candidatures of its curators and promised to render charity aid.

Russia must pass a long and difficult road of development to achieve such results. For the time being public organisations can achieve small improvement of the relations by patient persuasion of the administration. In Poland they managed to do it rather soon through the training centres for the prison personnel, through public lectures and courses on human rights. We, in Russia, shall have to pass this road.

Sergey Shimovolos, Chairman of Nizhny Novgorod Society for Human Rights

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